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Video: One young adult…and a Roman refugee center

This video story is being published in time for World Refugee Day, which is observed on June 20.

[Episcopal News Service] In the shadow of the Colosseum, one of the world’s most popular tourist attractions, the Colle Oppio Park is home to many of Rome’s refugees.

A mile north, in the crypt of the Episcopal Church’s St. Paul’s Within the Walls, some of those refugees find a breakfast and a host of other resources to survive and to rebuild their lives in Italy.

The Joel Nafuma Refugee Center is where Jared Grant’s vocation has led him this year. It’s his second year as a volunteer with the Episcopal Church’s Young Adult Service Corps program, widely known as YASC. He previously served in Lesotho in South Africa. The two experiences could not have been more varied, but in Grant’s discernment for the priesthood, they also could not have been more valuable.

Jenny Korwan is also working at the refugee center for a few months. She’s not long back from Kenya where she served for a year with the YASC program. As with many YASC volunteers, mission is in her blood.